CULTIVATING WONDERhttps://susanchernakmcelroy.net
with Susan Chernak McElroySun, 16 Dec 2018 20:43:00 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.3https://i0.wp.com/susanchernakmcelroy.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/cropped-cropped-DeerSue2.jpg?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1CULTIVATING WONDERhttps://susanchernakmcelroy.net
3232121926263Death–the Final Frontier?https://susanchernakmcelroy.net/backyard-nature/death-the-final-frontier/
https://susanchernakmcelroy.net/backyard-nature/death-the-final-frontier/#respondSun, 16 Dec 2018 20:43:00 +0000http://susanchernakmcelroy.net/?p=2154Continue reading →]]>This winter, I decided to trim back even less of my garden when all the plants began their annual march from lush abundance, to spent sticks. As the palette in my yard shifted from greens to splashes of gold and bronze, then finally to shades of pewter, brown, and silver, the winter birds began arriving.

I don’t know if they’ve been this numerous in other years. Perhaps so, and I just never noticed it. But this year, I am noticing: juncos, wrens, goldfinches, chickadees arrived in chittering flocks to tease the seed heads of cone flowers and asters, goldenrod and bee balm.

So of course, I cannot cut the plants down. The birds are having far too much fun nibbling them and scratching beneath their protected brown understory, and I’m having far too much fun enjoying the show of movement, song, and flight.

I’m feeling a special kinship with the dried stalks of borage and foxglove, and all the other crisp, brittle skeletons of my garden companions. For one thing, we share the same hues: my hair has turned over the years to the color of alder bark and hawthorne. My bones are becoming brittle as the mint stems. I note the crepe-like texture of my aging skin that feels more and more like old leaves with each passing year.

When spring comes again, the plants will rise from their inner dreaming in the dark soil and spring once again to supple green life, but my hair will remain gray, my bones brittle, and my skin like crepe.

I am sitting often these days with the reality of aging, and with the deepening understanding that this stage of life is a slow, thoughtful journey toward a threshold. With each day, I come ever closer to my last. It is as though I can see that horizon now, where the world—my world—ends.

I don’t know if it is possible to contemplate such a journey in one’s younger years—provided one has the gift of robust health. Minnie, my mother, used to say that you can’t understand what being old is until you get there. Like pregnancy, it needs to be lived to be understood. And while I have never been pregnant, I am well on my way to being old.

In autumn, the plants return to their source below ground, going inward, slipping quietly into the life of roots and soil and the seasonal alchemy of cold. I find myself retracting more and more into my interior self, my own rootedness, as my personal autumn deepens toward winter. Like the comfrey plants whose banana-sized leaves have fully melted into the ground around them, I am called to different tasks in the waning seasons of my life.

And the tasks are challenging. All of growing up seems to be about “more:” more skills, more learning, more friends, more projects, more excitement, more life. But now, I sense that my life will be about learning to adapt gracefully and peacefully to less: less energy, less mental acuity, less activity, less ability to see or hear well, less good health.

Already in my life, I’ve had to say no to two of my dream jobs when they were finally offered to me in later life. I simply did not have the energy or the concentration to undertake them. A part of me is still shaking my fist at the heavens over the loss.

Around me, peers are beginning to fail and die. The effect on my heart is sobering. I realize one day too soon, that will be me. Owing to chronic illnesses, both John and I have aged more swiftly than some of our friends, so I’ve been struggling with the enormity of letting go of many things for nearly a decade now.

So, why isn’t it any easier? Perhaps because, paradoxically, although this is the time of my physical life where I am able to do less, it is the time of my life where more opportunity surrounds me than ever before. I no longer have to work at a “real job” and my days are my own.

I’ve used the time to craft a close circle of friends—a village around me—and with more friends comes more chances for fun activities. I can honestly say that in the past few years, my life—while much harder—has been happier than ever before.

Since bees and bee tending found me, I have a new passion that I am physically able to undertake. And yet each year, I find myself having to say “no” more and more to the invitations of the world around me.

I don’t want to shut my mind to any aspect of this final pilgrimage of aging. Although the prospect of death is unnerving, to say the least, I want to try to welcome this spirit to walk beside me and inform my days. Because I need her teachings about how to be in this new, rickety landscape of my life. I need to learn how to let go of everything and somehow manage a Mona Lisa smile at it all.

Here is what my aching knees, sore back, arthritic hands, and fragile health are whispering to me these days. This is their wisdom, as near as I can interpret it:

Daughter, less is more. Sitting quietly is noble, not a waste of time. Daydreaming heals. Quiet mornings, quiet evenings—these things start and end your days with peace.

Daughter, ‘Been-there-done-that’ is a fine mantra now. Cherish tasks and skills that were for another time, and let them go. Dust off old attitudes that served you in youth, shine them up, smile at them, and let them go. Remember people and places from another time, treasure the memory (that lasts forever), and let them go.

Daughter, the senses were created for taking in information. Your senses are getting opaque now, dimmer. See? They are trying to tell you that you simply no longer need to be taking in more and more information. Sight, sound, scent, touch—such brilliant gifts for a life, but they can also distract you from your tasks at hand now. The path into the winter moons of life requires a traveling inward, not putting all your energy into the delights and absorption of the senses.

Oh, Daughter, so much your life has been lived in your head and your thoughts. Now is the time for sinking into the deep heart of reconciliation, of a gentle and compassionate review of your days and years, of listening to the conversations of grass, leaves, and bees. Nature knows growth, fading, deconstruction, and renewal. These are the teachings that will serve you now. How limited and fear-filled is your human wisdom on these matters. Sit with dragonflies and pond lilies and follow their counsel, instead.

Daughter, good neighbors are more precious and valuable now than old friends and family from afar. Cultivate a village of support and love across the fences. Give more than you hope to gain. Bring bread. Bring plants. Bring helping hands. Close neighbors are the guardian angels of this time of life.

Daughter, sit with yourself. What a tragedy it would be if you left this life without having ever truly befriended—or known—yourself.

Daughter, no matter your circumstances, there is always the opportunity —every moment—to make a difference in this world. An encouraging smile, a laugh, a listening ear, a tender hand on your dog’s head, an errand for a friend. These are not small things. No expression of kindness or love is a small thing. In you last breaths, you will know the true worth of every kindness you ever offered the world, and you will ride on the currents of this love—if you have crafted it well over the years—back home to the One.

On these cold and windy days, I wander the yard, listening not so much with my ears, but with my years, to the guidance inside the shoe-sucking, winter-wet ground. At the center of a blackened comfrey crown something catches my eye. I move my fingers to push aside a crumbled stalk and find the tiniest gold-green shoot. She stands there like a tiny fairy, bright and supple, tucked into the deep safety of her self-made mulch.

You, too, will rise up again, fresh and green, a thousand times over, I imagine her say as I touch the softness of new growth. You’ll see!Turn the page of your life over like a fragile leaf and find so many, many more chapters awaiting you!

]]>https://susanchernakmcelroy.net/backyard-nature/death-the-final-frontier/feed/02154CARTERhttps://susanchernakmcelroy.net/backyard-nature/carter/
https://susanchernakmcelroy.net/backyard-nature/carter/#commentsTue, 04 Dec 2018 22:46:48 +0000http://susanchernakmcelroy.net/?p=2142Continue reading →]]>The bare trees clatter their branches together in the strong east winds on this chilly morning. Gone now are the whispered conversations of leaves, the soft hiss of green grasses bending in a summer breeze.

I always keep a handkerchief in my pocket now for when my nose starts dripping from the cold. I set my plans for the winter season almost two months ago, finishing up the last of my summer projects of bees and swarms, flowers and watering, weeding and composting.

The Eden of my backyard is a bit tattered-looking now, the tall grass heads and stands of asters, coneflowers, and black-eyed Susans scrapping their dried brown seed heads together while flocks of tiny birds hop about beneath them. For the birds and the insects, I’ve left pretty much everything standing this winter. I’ll do clean up in the spring when the seeds have fallen, the insects nesting in hollow stems have departed, and the birds have had their fill…

With the last of the garden chores done, I wiped my muddy hands on my pants and turned my mind to winter dreaming. My agenda for this winter, is pretty straightforward: write, write, and write some more. Then, a few classes to teach.

Winter is that goes-within season that some treasure and some do their best to avoid. For myself, I love the cold season as it is the only thing that can keep me indoors anymore, and at my writing table. Naturally introverted and intensely introspective, I treasure the long nights, the hot tea, the baking bread, and the deep quiet.

So, what in the world was I doing last Tuesday in a car in the pouring rain, driving three hours south with Hubby John to go look at a puppy? “We must be nuts,” I said to John as rain sheeted across the windshield and pounded like marbles on the roof of the car.

“Well…we’ll just have a look,” he said. We’d both been talking for nearly a year about bringing a new pup home. Mazel will be eleven this year. In our mid-to-late 60s now, we figure it will be the last chance we have to raise one more pup. But even after we’d decided it was something we wanted to do, it always got pushed to the back burner.

So I was as surprised as anyone to find myself searching for puppies on Craigslist, and even more surprised to find one listing jumping out at me: “Catahoula-Aussie mix pups. Two left.” In a trance, I watched myself call the owner, talk to John, and barrel out the door to drive south and see the pups. A three-hour drive used to be nothing to me. Used to…

So, with storms and showers following us all through Southern Oregon, we slid into Todd’s driveway in the late afternoon. I left the decision to John, and John chose the red pup, who Todd’s kids had named “Vortex.”

In no time at all, we were turned around, headed home with Mazel Tov and “Vortex” in the rear. “What have we done??” I asked John.

“I guess we’ll find out…” he answered. Mazel pulled himself upright against the far corner of the seat, nose in the air, as though his seat-mate smelled vile. The little red puppy sat quietly in the center, looking a bit shell-shocked. I’m sure we did, too. Neither dog made a sound for the next three hours.

That first night at home was a circus. I’d made no plans for bringing a puppy home, so we gave the pup some makeshift toys for the night: an old shoe, a torn sock, a knotted dishtowel. John set the puppy up on the recliner with him, and I headed for bed.

Buzzed from the long drive, I laid sleepless in bed a long time, looking out of the darkened windows, wondering what in the world had compelled me to act so impulsively. Dinky, my living bed-warmer, wondered, too. Winter is the time for quiet and going within. But I had suddenly turned the season on its head.

What would happen to my writing time? Would there be any more long, quiet days? What about silent reveries with tea and books?

I was up at six the next morning, mopping up pee puddles and tossing together a small breakfast of yogurt, sweet potatoes, and a handful of Mazel’s dried kibble. We dropped the name “Vortex” and decided to call the little red guy “Pup” til his true name became clear to us.

Mazel was still behaving as though we’d brought home some nasty, smelly thing. He growled when Pup neared his bed, or tried to tug on his tail. But Pup was a mannerly fellow who listened well and acted accordingly. He honored the boundary lines Mazel set.

Carter: “Umm, can I pass–please?”Earl: “Umm, no.”

Dinky was willing to sniff noses with the new guy. When I took Pup outside, he met the muscovy family with great trepidation, backing up so fast he fell onto his bottom. Earl, our drake, hissed. The ladies, Blackie and Bella raised their mohawks and spread their wings. Blackie waddled forward and gave Pup a bop on the nose with her bill. Just because.

Pup circled behind my legs. He had decided quickly where safety could be found in this very strange new world. We headed back to the house and before we got there, Pup squatted and pooped—a loose, wet stream.

By evening, I had learned a good deal about our new family member. Although I still had not determined what in the world had so compelled me to bring this particular pup home. I think I felt much as he did that day: confused, concerned, and lost in some odd parallel universe.

We sorted through names all day, eventually settling on Carter, which is John’s mother’s maiden name, and John’s middle name. I’ve always loved that name, and loved the very sound of it. It seems to me a stout-hearted name, a manly name, a strong name. Just as the little pup was quickly proving himself to be.

Anytime a new creature comes into our home, I spend a great deal of time observing. It is my habit with my bees, and it has become my habit with everything else as well, and it is a darn good habit. I noticed how quickly Carter learned to follow us when we were outside. How fast he understood “sit,” and to do so whenever I showed him his food bowl.

I watched Carter learn quickly not to fight the doggy gates we set up across kitchen and living room, and to sit and wait patiently for us to return to the room. I learned that he loved to be held, and would sit happily in a lap for as long as he was welcomed.

All this adjusting seemed to come easily to him. “He is a strong dog,” I told John. “He is grounded and very confident in his skin.” Carter looked up into my face and barked a quick “Yes!”

But, alas, his tummy was not adjusting as well as the rest of him. The runny poops continued all day. By night, I was headed to the vet, afraid. The technicians met me in the parking lot, dressed in Eboloa-styled garb. “In case he has Parvo…” they said.

The nose knows…

As we waited in the exam room, I held Carter tightly in my lap. He looked into my face with his remarkable yellow wolf eyes, and licked my nose. And let’s spend just a moment to talk about noses. Carter has a unique one, pink and black spotted, as though his mother pawed him on the nose and left her smudged print.

I kissed his cool, wet nose and whispered, “You have to be okay.” Because I knew something else about him then. Even in my tranced-out, overwhelmed state, I knew looking into those startling gold-green eyes that I had stumbled across a small wonder. “You know, I’m really surprised that he is still here,” Todd had said when we came to see the pups. “Vortex is the most striking of the puppies and I expected him to be first of the eight to go, but he’s still here.”

“You made yourself invisible, didn’t you?” I breathed into his red fur. “You waited for us. And we found you. And you have to be okay.” I kissed his head, breathing in that sweet puppy smell. He rested quietly, keeping his eyes on mine.

We were at the vets for a long time, and ultimately went home with some poop medicine, some antibiotics, and an assurance of no disease. On the way home, he started vomiting. Stress can be a hard thing. I have long suffered from psychogenesis, defined as “the development of physical disorders as a result of mental conflicts rather than from organic causes.” That is, when my mind is upset, it translates into physical symptoms.

It seems that Carter suffers from it, too. That night, he threw up twice more. For the second night in a row, I went to bed tossing and turning. But by mornings, all my prayers to “the helping spirits” were answered. Carter had turned the corner and was holding down his breakfast and lunch.

We are still in week-one of puppyville, but we are all settling in. John had a bad interaction with a saw that sent us to the ER for a whole day, but even with all this, we are finding our stride—slowly—as a new, slightly larger, family.
I will keep the spirit of winter alive, even with this new little red blizzard whirling his way through the house. And I will give myself the smallest of pats on my back for allowing my heart to take over my body and send us hurtling down through Oregon in the rain. I don’t often get such strong, inconceivable tugs down deep in my bones, and I am glad that—mostly—I listen to them.

Some winters are unseasonably warm, with occasional breaths of unexpected spring on the east winds. This winter, we will honor two seasons here at MillHaven: the season of quiet introspection and inner rest, and the spring of new beginnings that have come to us clothed in red fur.

How can it be that my soul suddenly feels big enough to juggle two seasons in one? How is it that my heart has stretched to encompass loving two dogs?

John and Carter do some male bonding.

Maybe it is my very own Christmas Miracle. Yes. That must be it.

My wish for you is that your very own Christmas Miracle tugs at you this season. And even if it seems stupid and ill-conceived to follow—follow it you do.

Sheesh, it took me a long time to get back to this! So, twenty-plus backyard swarms, tomato harvests, bird rescues, bee rescues, and many months of watering later, I am here to continue my reflection on finding balance in an insane world.

As I write this, the Ford-Kavanaugh debacle is in full swing. And it is making me crazy. And I am very frustrated that I have allowed myself to let this affect my mental and physical health, which it has. I even found myself drinking a beer last night (I’ve probably drunk five bottles of beer in my entire life…) to calm my shaky nerves.

I am frustrated with myself because this upheaval is no longer in accord with how I manage to stay sane in an insane world. This is how I manage my life for most-possible sanity and peace on a daily basis:

For starters, I no longer follow the news. I am assaulted by the news on FaceBook, and I do my best to avoid it. I simply unfollow people who are heavily into political postings or–worse–rantings. I believe that whatever comes across my page as news is no longer to be trusted. I have become deeply sensitive to the look, feel, and smell of agendas in everything I read. To my mind, most news is about people trying to prove a point they have already decided upon, and I trust the information will be skewed that way.

I am also very sensitive to the emotions of alarm, danger, outrage, and rage that parades as news. I am tired of media trying to scare me into doing whatever their agenda advances. I am tired of corporations calling me a “consumer”–like I’m some kind of mindless larva that is nothing but a mouth and an anus (oh–and a very unlarva-like wallet).

I do not believe that allowing chaos and anxiety into your house is a good thing, and that’s what news and advertising are to me–creators of chaos and anxiety. Dr. Andrew Weil has recommended permanent news fasts, and I agree with him. Anything I need to know about, I will hear about. It really just works that way unless you are a hermit.

I offer no apologies to those who would criticize me for not being a “good enough” citizen.”But don’t you feel a responsibility to keep yourself informed?” Thank you, no–I don’t. I am informed about the things I choose to be informed of. Not what the ruling powers would prefer me to be informed about. Because the ruling powers don’t care if I am traumatized or incapacitated by an overload of useless, pointless drivel that they are so fond of spouting.

Tomatoes make everyone happy. All that happy, shining red. It is like standing among smiles.

The next piece of my personal sanity program is to truly consider what events or things I can impact and which are out of my hands. Those that are out of my hands–well, the very best I can do there is prayer and meditation. And then do whatever is necessary to help myself move on from there.

I honestly do not believe that the gods want me to suffer over things that are beyond my ability to address. I am not letting myself lose sleep over the situation in Myanmar, or Syria, or gorillas in danger in the Congo. I could let myself go into deep despair over any of these things but for what benefit? For. What. Benefit?

I applaud those who are global activists, and know that I am not constituted that way. So, should I shame-guilt myself over that? Nope. I send them prayers for strength, and offer compassion for my self in the very small ways I am able to affect change in the world.

I am a good friend. I am a good neighbor. I have helped people with my writing. I do my best not to bring stress and discord into anyone’s day. I care for nature and her kin and am responsible this summer alone for keeping alive four birds who would have died without my intervention. This, to me, is as important as saving a refugee. These things are the best that I can do with my own, precious, fragile life.

Bees are always a good choice for restoring sanity. They have endured for more than 30 million years by being creatures of generosity and peace. Time in their company is always an education and a blessing.

And I put considerable energy into having deep compassion for my very limited self. That kind of energy is well spent. Wringing my hands over the pathetic machinations of our Congress? A waste of time. I vote with my ballot and my wallet. That is the most I can do there. Meanwhile in my yard, I can save a life or two: A praying mantis in the middle of my street, a failing tree. When my granddaughter struggles with why her classmates kill bees and step on ants, I can help explore such things in a healthy way.

If I had lots of money, I would use it to affect change, but I don’t. My life has to be my means of offering benefit. And if that is so, then I must put my energy into keeping myself as healthy and clear minded as I can, so that I can bring about good change and small peace to my loved ones, my neighbors, my town.

In summary, my means of finding peace are these:

Meditate–Honestly, I don’t know how anyone can survive without it.
Choose the ideas and the information and the people you will allow into your life and home.
Don’t suffer over tragedies that are not yours to bear. Choose wisely the ones that ARE.
Bring peace into the world in small ways every day.
Don’t broadcast your misery to others. Be considerate of your confidants, and don’t have too many. Because how many people do you need to feel terrible, or helpless, on your behalf?
Do your best to bring love into every interaction, in as much as you can. I know this is not easy when you think everyone around you has gone bat-shit crazy. Ask me how I know this…

It’s been a crazy time up in my Beethedral this spring. We’ve had very wet weather ever since March, and I hoped that the bees would want to begin swarming from my four over-wintered hives as soon as they got a sunny day.

Well, they did. It’s been swarm city here at MillHaven for the past week. Some of the swarms have been business-as-usual, as my hives began pouring out exuberant, clouds of singing bees. Two of the swarms, I gathered into new skeps I wove over the winter. But the following swarms have left me scratching my head, perplexed…

Once a hive swarms, she usually settles down for about 10 days while the new virgin queens in the hive finish pupating. It takes them about 8 days after the swarm has left for the new queen bees to hatch. The colony needs a new queen, as the old queen heads off with the new swarm. The bees hedge their bets, so a parent hive makes anywhere from 4-18 or more new queens, only one of which will become mother to the colony.

If you put your ear to the colony, which I do often, you can sometimes hear the new queens begin piping and singing as they begin hatching. The sound is otherworldly, like whale song, owl cry, and coyote howl all rolled into one. Once that song begins, a bee tender can expect more swarms any day.

Once the new queens hatch, often the hive will send off several more smaller swarms called “cast” or “secondary” swarms with these new virgin queens, hopefully spreading their genes out widely in their territory. So I’ve been listening for the queen song eagerly these days.

Sheesh, Gobnait, couldn’t you have waited for another day or two?

But my Gobnait hive and Wing hive decided not to wait for new queens. They each launched two more swarms before the new queens hatched. I tried to imagine a few reasons why a hive would do this, because if they fly with no queen, they cannot survive. As Gobnait and Wing took to the air, within 15 minutes of each other, I watched them in utter wonder—as in, “I wonder what in the world they’re doing?”

I tried ushering Gobnait’s new swarm them into my one remaining skep. They flew back out and landed on one of my bait hives that I set to lure swarms. A few moments later, both the swarms had flown off yet again and–shockingly–joined together, which is simply unheard of. They settled commingled on the tallest branch of my neighbor’s maple tree, far out of reach. In a half-hour, they took wing again and spiraled up into the sky and out of sight. Meanwhile, back in the skep and the bait hives two small cluster of bees remained. A third small cluster had settled into one of my unused wooden hives across the yard.

I left them all where they had landed, and spent the rest of the evening wondering why they had left the parent hive in the first place, with no queen. Perhaps such queenless swarms fly off to relieve overcrowding in the home hive. Perhaps they hope to find a hive that will let them move in. Maybe they will settle into a new home and begin making comb and gathering nectar, hoping to attract a new small swarm that has a queen. Or do they just fly confidently into the unknown, trusting in miracles and the goodness of life.

That night, before I went to bed I took a flashlight up into the Beethedral and put my ear against Gobnait and Wing, and heard the first sounds of the piping new queens. Why had the swarm not waited just a couple of more days?

Angel and I install the “Bee Spy!”

The next day, I roamed, perplexed, from one cluster to the other wondering if there was anything I should do for them. Or was my highest calling and greatest challenge to just let them be and keep musing on this mystery? I watched very closely my anxious need to do something. Often in my life, I’ve had the tendency to do something, anything, instead of waiting to see what reveals itself. For the morning hours, I decided to let them be, and to learn what they had to teach me.

It turns out I didn’t have to wait for long. Later that afternoon, I was standing in the Beethedral with my friends Angel and Thea, helping to set up a live-streaming “bee cam” so I could see if my hives were swarming if I’d left the house for an errand. Honestly, during swarm season, I am completely tied to my backyard for about 10 weeks.

As we were aiming the angle of the camera, Angel looked down and said, “My, that’s a big bee…” I looked over to where he was peering at his feet. And there was the largest, fattest queen bee I’ve ever seen in my yard. She was lumbering regally across the mulch that bedded the Beethedral floor. Instinctively, I reached down and cupped her in my hands. My head was spinning. What to do? What to do now?

The decision came quickly. I asked Thea if she could help me gather the small clusters of bees from the old wood hive and the bait hive. We could place them in the new skep with the third cluster and offer them this new queen. To be sure they would welcome her, I snatched a few of the clustered bees in my fingers and added them and the queen to a mason jar. The queen hurried over and begged food from the other bees, who complied. We had a team! And this team had a chance at survival!

Hope

It didn’t take Thea and I very long to feather the two clusters of bees into the new skep, where they were welcomed by their sisters. Then, I uncapped the jar and released the queen. As we were gathering our bee gear, I turned to Thea and said, “They have hope now.”

Ask me what the name is that I lettered in black paint on the face of this skep months ago, and I’ll gladly tell you, as the angels and bees giggle all around me. Her name was–is–Hope.

Bella sits patiently. I could use more of that patience stuff, myself!

Over the years, I’ve had many readers ask me how I keep sane in a world so full of unimaginable suffering. Having worked for several humane societies and wildlife centers over the years, I have seen no small share of animal suffering. I’m aware, as are most sane people, of the destruction of the planet, and the daily news broadcasts to us in blazing color what we are doing to each other, as well.

You, my readers, know that I see and feel the ache of the Earth. Many sensitive souls do, and finding our way to some kind of reconciliation with the world we see is no simple task. Peace and hope come slowly, over time, and achieving these blessings takes determined personal effort…

I want to share my own journey down this rocky road with you, in hopes that you might find some nuggets of help there. I’m not going to offer platitudes about how “some people are doing good, and there is some progress in certain arenas,” because if you are anything like me, these kinds of statements ring hollow and sound downright stupid. With the minds we have and the gifts of which we are capable, it’s a bit pathetic that after thousands of years on the planet, “a few good things by a few good people” is all we can manage. Hogwash.

I won’t even speculate as to how we got into the mess we are in, because others far more gifted and far-sighted than me are tackling these issues elsewhere.

I’ll just share how it has been for me, in my own confused mind, in my own clinically depressed and medicated body. I’ll share this dance of balancing on the razor edge of wonder and despair, and maybe it will give you some new dance steps of your own to try out.

I was in my early 20s when I began working for the animal welfare movement. I was a humane educator in a large and well-respected humane society, and I spent my days surrounded by animals in bleak circumstances. I’m going to spare you by not telling any of the particular tales of these animals, many of whom I remember vividly to this day.

I’ll say only that my response to the animals abuse and neglect I was seeing back in those years was to decide that people were basically awful, irresponsible, and cruel. I realized that I liked animals far better than most people. It was back then that I came to view animals and nature as the Earth’s innocents, and humans as guilty of just about everything: Pollution? War? Meanness? Garbage and filth? Arrogance? Selfishness? Laziness? Greed?

All these vices I never witnessed in the natural world, and I would often hike to the marsh just below my little apartment to sit with my dog, Keesha, at the edge of the brackish water, just to get away from those depleting energies that I felt sucking me dry in the daily rat-race of work, errands, illness, bills, and health problems.

I stayed angry through most of my young adult years. I felt helpless to address the huge issues of social and environmental justice, and because I could not fix the world, I felt guilty all the time. Remember, now, this is my story, and so it is—like most people’s stories if they are being really honest with themselves—not particularly rational.

So, guilt. It has been a huge one for me. For every animal I save, there are millions that I can’t. For very plot of ground I have resurrected, there are billions of acres that are scarred and ruined that I cannot impact. For every kind word and deed I do, there are millions I cannot reach or touch, or help. And so I lived consumed for many decades by the helplessness of never being “enough.”

I know there are a bunch of you out there who just nodded at that: “being enough.” How can any of us be enough in the face of world catastrophe? Still, this heaviness hangs from our heart like a huge lead weight, pulling down our shoulders and hunching our backs. We walk stooped and dazed and sad and helpless and enraged and meanwhile cruelty and calamity swirl about us without cease.

So I became a seeker, searching for traditions and teachings that could help me make sense of what I saw as the Hell-of-Human-Making on Earth. I followed native American traditions for a long time and they deepened my sense of being a relative to all of Creation, but they didn’t help me find a sense of peace in the 21st Century. For a time, I studied Centering Prayer, a Christian meditation tradition, and for the first time, I became intrigued with training my mind so that it would serve me rather than slay me.

Centering Prayer was a fine first step, but I needed more discipline in a meditative tradition, and so I found my way to Buddhism and Vipassana meditation. I went on a 10-day silent retreat where I learned enough about Vipassana to continue my meditation practice at home, supplementing the process with Buddhist magazines and books.

Meanwhile, the depression that had showed up in my life when I had started menopause began to be a larger and larger influence on my life. Doctors tried a wide variety of medications on me, but most would become ineffective after a few months. The depression was having a profound influence on my daily life. Trying to function when you are perpetually confused, fatigued, and dealing with sporadic waves of anxiety and panic coming out of nowhere sucks up all your available energy.

I stopped being able to work full-time. I spent weeks in bed, feeling guilty about every moment of it. Outside, the world needed me and I was bunched up under the covers, using every ounce of will I could muster to come up with a plan for dinner.

Somehow during that time, I developed a tiny ongoing shred of clarity in my meditation practice—just enough to let me see that I would have to muster my failing will and make my health a priority. It took a few years and a week-long stint in a mental health facility to get my medications working and get the depression contained.

Notice, I call it “the depression,” not “my depression.” It is not a small distinction. There is great power in refusing to claim as “mine” any weakening mental or physical state. Buddhist teacher Tich Naht Hahn would say something like “Depression has come.” “Anger is visiting.” In this way we remind ourselves of our true and shining goodness, and acknowledge that the crap is not “us.” It is just crap that comes to visit.

Another thread that had begun weaving its way in my life was the system of Permaculture. The dictionary defines permaculture as “the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient.” And mostly, sustainable means local and small. Permaculture probably single-handedly created the local food movement, the organic movement, the small farming movement.

I took a beginner’s training in permaculture and learned to appreciate small things, small gestures, slow improvements over time, and close observation. These techniques and virtues that work so well in the garden work perhaps even more powerfully when applied to a life—my life, for instance.

Perhaps it is a blessing of age, but I believe that in getting older and slower—I’m 66 now—the expansiveness of my young years has given way to a yearning to embrace the small. It is as though my arms, opened wide all through my youth, fingertips reaching out beyond my grasp to all the challenges and pitfalls of the world, are suddenly following a deep urge to gently wrap themselves around me, around my small family and house and yard, where I can look closely and appreciatively at what is…well…close.

So, to sum up a bit, these are themes that worked together in my soul to help me reconcile myself to a crazy world: Committed attention to health, an indigenous perspective on the Creation, meditation, and permaculture.

These helpmates came and and steered me toward a template I could use to fine peace and meaning in a world of suffering and fear. And there were others. We’ll explore those next time, and take a closer look at how these perspectives can be put into simple practices for crafting hope, peace, and healing in the midst of madness. And please, I encourage you to share with this virtual village of mine processes that you have found helpful in YOUR life!

]]>https://susanchernakmcelroy.net/stories-and-musings/finding-peace-in-a-mad-mad-world-part-1/feed/22065Befriending the Darkhttps://susanchernakmcelroy.net/stories-and-musings/befriending-the-dark/
https://susanchernakmcelroy.net/stories-and-musings/befriending-the-dark/#commentsFri, 29 Dec 2017 21:40:19 +0000http://susanchernakmcelroy.net/?p=2047Continue reading →]]>With Solstice behind us, the light is circling back, yet we are still enfolded by the dark moons. I’ve always loved the cold months and the dim light. I’m a woman who likes cocooning and snuggling and pondering, and winter is a perfect season for such things.

Gardening chores and bee chores are done for the year, and the naked trees stand expectantly, waiting for spring to dress them in new finery. Rain drops chat softly with window panes, and every now and then a sharp, insistent wind screams dark and fierce up the Gorge…

Magazines offer lots of articles on how to get through this season warm, upbeat, and safe: Stay safe on the Ice! Try some super-food soups to defray the flu! Buy new water-proof boots! Beat the blues with these herbs! Take a winter get-away trip to Mexico!

My one “treatment” for these months is a lightbox that I sit in front of for about an hour each morning to keep my chronic depression controlled during these months of less light.

Oh, and I keep my clothing snuggly. After many years of going through the winter in bulky jackets and flannel-lined jeans, I’ve converted to thick, bright patterned fleece jammie bottoms and soft wool ponchos. It is me. I feel like all the time is nappy time and snuggle time!

Most of us have developed strategies for managing winter cold and darkness, but I want to talk about another kind of darkness we are far less equipped to deal with.

Like many people, I am plagued with a ferociously busy mind that spews forth a ceaseless stream of thoughts. I have thoughts about past and futures, reveries, plans, and inner commentary on everything. Through my meditation practice, I’ve come to see that I have an opinion about everything my senses touch.

Try this sometime: Notice what you are seeing and hearing, for starters. Is there a single thing that you see or hear that you don’t have some judgement about? Dark clouds—like! Cold outside—don’t like! Dog barking—agh! Don’t like! Grass—meh. Ducks—like! Duck shit—don’t like… If you do this for about 5 minutes straight, you will most likely decide—as I did—that you are nuts.

But this is by no means the worst of it. There are these thoughts, the dark thoughts, that spring up all by themselves with no encouragement: ISIS—nuke ‘em. Dick Cheney—when is that turd going to die? Starving refugees—Crap, can’t they just go home??

Now, maybe you are not beset with such utter meanness. I am, and I have for many years felt so very guilty about all the folks I’ve wished just gone off the face of the Earth, good riddance. Yes, I know love heals all things, but sometimes it takes love too damn long, and I want a speedy solution right now, which usually entails incarceration, juries, or fantasies of baddies being simply lifted off planet somewhere they can do no more harm.

Where animals and nature abuse and cruelty is concerned, sometimes that fantasy is me with a shotgun in my hands, blowing people away. There. I’ve said it. Now you know.

It is this kind of winter darkness I want to explore today. Now, the simple antidote to thoughts like this smacking you right out of the blue is to: 1) ignore them and change thoughts quickly to something upbeat, fuzzy, and happy, 2) sign petitions to get rid of Monsanto and Bayer, 3) berate yourself—hard— for being just one step below Hitler on the evil scale, 4) drink, drug, or eat to excess, or 4) cry and keep the “truth” about your black soul a deep, dark secret.

I’m trying a different tactic these days. Spiritual study teaches me I am not my thoughts. I am not even the one who notices that I have these thoughts. Buddhism teaches me that we are basically good—something I have doubted about humanity for a long time. But am now convinced I was wrong. We ARE basically good, just ill-taught and easily led astray.

I believe that to trust in the goodness of the Divine Unity, we need to find our way to faith in a benevolent, loving force behind all things. Some call that God, but that word is too loaded with old-nasty-fat-man images for me to find peace there. Even Goddess feels too rigid. So, I am developing faith in a nameless goodness that I must trust I am a small piece of.

This past week has given me a lot of moments to work with my inner winter darkness. This morning, John is in the midst of his fourth surgery in only seven days. My husband is by nature aggressive and he get’s cranky when he gets tired, impatient, fearful, or confused. He has been all of that and more since three days before Christmas when he started complaining about intense stomach pain.

The work of getting him to and from the hospital, and keeping my household running and the pets fed is pretty much on my shoulders, and I won’t tell you the thoughts I’ve had about him and my situation, because you would hate me forever.

At each instance of mean-minded thinking, I’ve caught myself, praise be, and stopped to take a deep breath. “Thank you for sharing,” I say to my pissy brain. “I’m not my thoughts…” I turn my heart and mind to the nameless Wonder and say “Thank you for loving me and forgiving me.” And in that moment, I have a small bit of healing—of light—instead of a moment of feeling like I’m the nastiest, most irredeemable bitch in the world.

And too, I’ve switched all my prayers of petition into prayers of thanksgiving. Just the rewording from “May I be healthy and happy,” to “Thank you for health and happiness” makes a deep difference to the soul, to my soul. The benefits of thanksgiving are not touted enough, to my thinking. We should all be shouting this simple truth from the rooftops.

Gratitude draws us closer to the Mystery. The more we give thanks, the more bathed in divine nourishment we become. My goal now is to try and make every waking moment a gratitude: “Thank you for my life this beautiful rainy morning. Thank you for health, for quiet, for flannel sheets, for Dinky and John. Thank you for birdsong…”

Remembering goodness. I think that is what I am talking about. The less I fret over the news (which is just about never anyway, since I rarely watch it), the less I gnash my teeth over imagined worst-possible outcomes, the more I allow myself to open up to the notion of trusting this big, wide, inconceivable mind behind the universe, the better I feel. But more important, the better I become.

The dark, cold thoughts feel less and less like my own, rather like the Wicked Witch’s flying monkeys that got blown of course and will be gone back to hell shortly.

In goodness, we are held harmless. It is our minds that torture us and keep us locked in a frantic race of “what am I…and what’s next?”

The rain patters, the black clouds are like thick, exotic quilts tucked over the edges of the town. My thoughts drift from light to dark back to light again. In the hospital bed, my husband sleeps peacefully. I am tucked into the soothing blankets of gratitude and relief, and the intimacy of sharing words with you, my most precious reader.

]]>https://susanchernakmcelroy.net/stories-and-musings/befriending-the-dark/feed/52047Shameless Commerce Departmenthttps://susanchernakmcelroy.net/bugs-and-bees/shameless-commerce-department/
https://susanchernakmcelroy.net/bugs-and-bees/shameless-commerce-department/#commentsSun, 01 Oct 2017 19:54:37 +0000http://susanchernakmcelroy.net/?p=2029Continue reading →]]>Hi Friends. While there are many, many places to put a few extra dollars these days (Irma, Harvey, Maria, Mexico…and the list goes on) I have a dream that is very big and that I would like to ask your help with.

My bee mentor, Jacqueline Freeman, and I have been invited to attend and speak at an international natural beekeeping congress in Holland next September. As you may imagine, foreign travel is not in my budget. Three nights at the coast is about as good as it gets for us in any given year. But as many of you know, bees have called me loudly and deeply these past few years, and Holland would be a dream-come-true in terms of the experts who will be there, exploring how to best care for bees in ways that are respectful and life-enhancing…

Our good and talented friend Thea created a GoFundMe Campaign to help us fund this dream

We’d be bringing SO much back here to the States to share with our bee club, our region and—as our small nonprofit grows–the nation.

I’ve heard of folks who’ve gotten tens of thousands of dollars in Kickstarter campaigns to search for the best potato salad. I know such campaigns tickle the funnybones of many, and that our campaign is not startling, funny, nor world-changing, but, if you have ever been moved by my books or feel that my writing has helped you in some way, I would ask–very humbly–if you might help me out with a donation of any size to our campaign. Promise to share with you all I learn, and I’m certain some of what would await me in Holland would be helpful to the new book I’m going to start working on this winter.

I’m fully aware how limited everyone’s wallets are these days, and how many worthy causes are clamoring for your donated dollars. I’m not a volcano, a hurricane, or an earthquake, but–still–I ask for your help and support!

If you’d like to help, you can fund us HERE. I thank you, and the bees thank you!

This past weekend, I remembered that I had a kitchen. It is a fact that escapes me for most of the summer months. Entranced by my garden and all of the precious tiny creatures who visit me in surprising fashion each day, food and cooking is the last thing on my mind from April to September.

Usually in September a day will come when the slant of the afternoon shadows finally touches me on the cheek, and autumn whispers a quiet greeting. When this moment happens—and each year it is, indeed, a precise moment when the realization that summer is leaving hits me—I take a sharp inhalation and murmur, “Oh… Oh.”…

Shortly after will usually come a day or more of welcome rain to quench the summer-burnt yard, and I will hurry inside and start cooking. Last week, the rains came and I got busy inside for the first time in months: Fermented pickles and vegetables, homemade yogurt, bone broth made with chicken heads and feet, sugar-free banana bread, sourdough pancakes.

Let’s not discuss housekeeping at MillHaven in the summer. Suffice it to say that dust motes, dog hair, and fluffy cosmic dirt webs are very happy at my house. While I cooked up a storm, I tried to keep my eyes off the floor and the furniture tops. Dust beckoned, but I’m not listening yet…

Weaving new beehives for next spring!

The energy of the autumnal equinox is one of going within, reverie, celebration and grief for dreams that flourished and dreams that died on the vine. I take this energy seriously. Fall is an intensely reflective season for me as I take stock not only of the joys and sorrows of the past year, but of my life in its full totality. Am I making any progress toward becoming more fully human, I ask myself. Am I becoming more whole? Am I of benefit?

About 15 years ago, I decided that I wanted to raise my happiness “set point.” Science says that we all have a happiness point that we return to after the glow of a new delight fades. They say some folks are simply born with a greater capacity for happiness, but also that we can teach ourselves to be happier. I decided to try to cook cup some happiness, since my set point—owing to a long journey with depression—was not stellar.

And I’m here to tell you, it can be done! It’s taken me years, but I find myself smiling more all the time. Small grievances and even big shocks don’t rock me like they used to, and I can come back to laughter more quickly all the time.

That’s my pollinator hotel up on the left, tucked among flowers and weeds.

For this huge accomplishment, I credit Nature, meditation, and all the tiny avatars that grace my yard, some with four feet, some six or eight.

I want to make a strong, STRONG pitch here for meditation practice. Over the years, it has changed me, healed me, and transformed me. I honestly don’t see how anyone, unless they are born a saint, can find self-awareness, peace, and happiness without some sort of regular spiritual practice. If you don’t have one, I beseech you—find one NOW!

Meditation has allowed me to vastly deepen my nature awareness. By teaching me how to focus and be still, I find that little miracles in my yard that I would simply have missed years back when I was still a mental dullard are made visible to me: The sun on my duck’s back that looks like a patch of melting butter, the standoff between a small jumping spider and a bee, a dragonfly preening herself on the edge of my bathtub pond.

All these tiny moments I see, and what’s more important, I feel. I feel the sense of the sun on the backs of my own hands. I feel the peace of the dragonfly at the water’s edge. I feel the deep intimacy between a bee and her flower, between my dog and my husband, among the birds conspiring on the vine maple branch. These moments of awareness—of course—raise my happiness quotient and help it stay there.

Here’s a story for you about small, happy things: A couple of weeks ago before the rain came, my friend Pixie and I went to cut down the last of our basket weaving grasses. We were nearly done when Pixie exclaimed, “Oh! Hello!” I hurried over to see her face-to-face with a beautiful praying mantis on a grass stalk. We decided Lady Mantis needed to be in the safety of our yards rather than so near a road, and I said “You take her Pixie. You were the one to find her.”

I gathered the insect in my hands and brought it over to the fence by the volleyball court and called over the team that was practicing. “Have any of you ever seen a praying mantis?” I called. I never miss a teaching moment!

The kids and their couch came over to me and oohed and aahhhhed, and the coach mentioned that the female mantids eat the males after mating. Not missing a beat, I looked into the eyes of each teenager and said, “Yes. Making an egg sac takes incredible body energy for an insect. Food is scarce in this world. The male mantis essentially sacrifices his life for the good of his children. His body will provide the nourishment the female needs to create her next generation.” I allowed a pregnant pause, then continued, “Isn’t this the kind of man you want to be?” I looked at the boys. “Isn’t this the kind of partner you want?” I looked at the girls. “A father that will lay down his life to protect and care for his family?” All the kids nodded among themselves.

The coach laughed “How do you know these things?!”

I said, “I’m a beekeeper. I know everything.”

Pixie took the mantis home, while I tried hard not to covet her bug. You see, I’d not seen a single mantis in my yard since months before when an ootheca (mantis egg) had hatched on the side of my beehive. And I missed them. I mean, who doesn’t get excited to see such insect nobility in their gardens?

It’s a bird! It’s a bee! No, it’s a bee-mimicking hover fly!

Weeks later, just after the rain that turned me back into a kitchen maid, I was deadheading blossoms out by the garage. The sun was at my back, warming the south-facing garage wall. I lifted my eyes and there she was: A huge tawny mantis making her way slowly, slowly along the garage wall.

I ran to tell Carter, my husband, and he came out to greet her. As we watched, I noted her very slow, almost tottering walk. I saw that she was carefully peeking along the cracks of the garage siding, that she looked to be searching.

“She’s looking for a place to lay her eggs,” I heard myself say without thinking. “She’s heavy with eggs, that’s why she’s walking so slow, and why she’s on this warm wall, looking.”

Carter watched for a time and headed off. I kept at my work with the flowers, and kept Lady Mantis in the corner of my vision. Meditation has taught me how to be still. So I noticed in stillness the sharp black shadow she cast on the garage wall, the warmth of the sun on my back, the faint breeze. I watched her antenna move, and her legs taking such long steps. I watched her abdomen sway from side to side as she proceeded. And I felt a quickening in my own heart, as she must have been feeling in her body. Something exciting is happening! A celebration is happening! Be still, watch and wonder!

A half hour had passes when Lady Mantis came to the juncture of the garage wall and the red rain downspout. She poked her arrow head to search the small space between the spout and the wall. With great delicacy, she shifted her body around—like a large ship moving in still waters—until she slid her belly behind the drain pipe. Wth all six legs, she hung onto the pipe.

Duck of Earl meets his new children for the first time. He is very gentle with them.

Yes, yes, I am easily amused, but really, seeing a mantis lay an egg? This was a true wonder! A moment of magic, of intimacy, of communion, of creation. All that. Right there at the downspout.

I peeked around the other side of the pipe, and there sat the soft mound of ootheca “goo” surrounding an egg cluster. The goo would harden like spray foam, and protect the mantis eggs all winter through ice and storm.

I get no thrill from stock market reports, or new cars, or the news about yet more new technology. I get my thrill from insects hovering over flowers, from my dog rolling on his back in green clover, from a bit of warm sourdough bread, from my husband hiding a tiny garage-sale gift next to my coffee cup.

Each of these moments have one thing in common: They are immediate and in real time. They are not a hope, not a musing, not a plan, a fear, nor a story I tell myself. When I fully allow these moments to enfold me, I experience the world as shiny perfect in just…this…moment.

Yes, there may still be utter insanity reigning in the human world, but in the world of small miracles—if you can fully give yourself over to them—you can have moments of deep joy and absolute holy perfection many, many times a day.

These small moments I’ve entrained myself with. This is what has raised and sustained my ability to feel joy: This going down, going within, going deep, and keeping it simple.

Please, travel this path with me. You have nothing to lose but your mind-numbing, world-distracting misery. Just out your door is happiness. All you need to know is where to look and how to listen.

“Oh m’god, what is THAT?!” This is the reaction of most folks who meet The Duck of Earl for the first time. One friend mistook him for a large, concrete garden sculpture, until he moved. A few have been surprised to find him standing suddenly behind them, making a noise like those raptors in Jurassic Park.

I’d like to share Earl with you, because he deserves his very own story. In the few weeks he’s been with us, he has shown himself to be a real character. Not a day goes by without hubby Carter or I telling each other, “Gads, did you see what Earl did today?” Because he is always doing something.

Duck of Earl is a young, huge muscovy drake. He came along as a “bonus” to the nine fertile duck eggs his owner gave me for our duck Lucy to brood…

“Do you want this drake?” Ty asked us. “I don’t have room for him, but we like him too much to give him to someone who will just turn him into dinner.”I said sure. I’m not surprised there are folks who would love to eat him. He would fill up a turkey platter. I’ve never seen a duck so big.

Elvis would have loved a Mohawk like this…

Earl and nine fertile eggs came home to MillHaven about a month ago. His first introduction to Bella went smoothly. She was there to welcome him out of his cat carrier, in which he was stuffed tight as sausage. When he emerged in all his pooped-on, gray glory, Bella fairly swooned. She put her bill up toward the sky and made soft little chirping noises. Muscovies are quackless ducks, and the females have the sweetest voices. Earl answered in typical male muscovy fashion with a raspy hiss ending in a gravely “chortle-chortle-chortle.”

“Gads, he sounds like a dinosaur,” said Carter. Bella quickly turned her back on him and politely dropped onto the ground. Earl didn’t need a second invitation. He was atop her fast, shoving her face into the ground. Duck mating is not a pretty sight. There is much head pecking, feather pulling, and mud. Then, there is this scary, bright orange corkscrew penis that suddenly appears from out of nowhere, and wiggles all over the place while the drake continues stomping on the back of his beloved like the RiverDance cloggers on a wooden stage.

“Shit…” said Carter. “He sure doesn’t waste any time…” I stood by, averting my eyes to the debauchery, waiting for it to be over. Earl continued his pubescent bumbling while Bella lay perfectly still. When the deed was consummated, Earl promptly rolled off and with a long hiss, he flopped onto his side, pulling that scary penis with him, and just laid there, exhausted.

Bella jumped up, wiggled her tail in ducky delight, and began preening her utterly unkempt feathers. Her pretty white face was covered in dirt. She was missing a chunk of feathers near her eye. She looked pleased as punch and secretly I knew that she was more than ready to go at it again. Now.

But it was going to take Earl some recovery time. For the rest of the afternoon, he followed her around like the new kid at school as she lead him around the yard, chatting to him all the while. She showed him the comfrey plants, the ferns, the compost bin, and—her favorite!—the plastic kiddie wading pool.

She showed him how to get into the pool from atop the cement block, and soon they were both flapping wildly in the water. When they left the pool, I saw Earl had displaced half the water.

I knew that we would have two issues with Earl that would need to be resolved so that our Eden could remain calm. First, Earl would need to prove himself a gentle suitor (some drakes are bigger cads than others), and—more urgent—he would need to learn to put himself to bed in the duck coop at night. We have many night visitors in our yard, and all would be delighted with a fresh duck dinner.

At nightfall, I headed outside to see if by some miracle, Lucy and Bella had managed to coax their new boy-toy into the boudoir. No such luck. In the twilight, I could see him perched on one foot atop the cinderblock pond stair. And what a foot it was: platter sized and greenish, with wicked-looking claws.

“Okay, Earl,” I said. “It’s time for you to retire for the evening with the ladies. You can’t stay out. It’s just not safe.” I moved toward him with my hands out, making a shooing motion in the direction of the coop. Earl was supremely disinterested. He acknowledged my presence with a wag of his ample tail. I moved closer. His head crest sprung up into full glory. Muscovies have these Mohawks they raise and lower. But Earl’s “do” was nothing like those on the girls.His crest had waves in it, like Elvis Presley. he ramped it up and down a few times, so that I got the full-on effect.

“Come on, big guy. We gotta go now…”

But Earl didn’t budge. He bobbed his head up and down a few times. As I moved closer, he extended his neck: “Hisssssssss chortle-chortle-chortle” he said. Undeterred, I pushed forward. Finally, and with a great sigh of defeat, Earl stepped off the cinder block. I could literally hear the sound of his big feet smack onto the ground.

The red blobbiness is called carunkeling. Earl’s is exceptionally attractive. At least, it is to our other ducks.

Over many years of bird and beast wrangling, I’ve learned how to use my arms as flags, to steer confused critters down the right path. Earl was not stupid, and he plainly got what I was up to. Slowly, he eased himself toward the coop, ducking his big head to step inside. A couple of flips of the fasteners and the ducks were all safe and sound for the night.

It only took Lucy and Bella one night to learn the “go-to-bed” routine. The second night after they came home with me four years ago, I went outside to herd them indoors, but they were already sleeping in the straw with their bills beneath their wings. I expected the same from Earl, but it seems that he is a night owl. Most nights, I find him there on one leg at the pond’s edge, watching the stars, sipping pond water.

He always sighs when I come out, as if to say, “Shoot, its the party pooper. Do I have to go to bed NOW????”

I chose muscovy ducks for my yard because they are more terrestrial ducks, interested in bugs more than water plants or any plants. Left to their own, they prefer to roost in trees and are very strong fliers. They are the only ducks not related to mallards. Actually, they are more closely related to geese. The are very quiet and very calm.

Bella and Lucy are about a third the size of Earl. Their feet do not squash tender plants. They nibble along on the grass and leave most other plants alone, except for the hostas, which they adore.

As Earl settled into his new reign in the yard, I realized quickly that simply by virtue of his size, the plants were going to suffer. He’s squashed quite a few, but they seem to be bouncing back.

While Lucy sat brooding her eggs, Bella and Earl made the rounds of the yard for the next month. Then, Lucy hatched out one lone duckling. The rest of the eggs were bad. Lucy had never been a mother before, and I know that drakes can sometimes be hard on ducklings. So I moved Lucy and Baby Ducky over to my next door neighbor’s yard, which has worked out great.

But just as Lucy was being relocated, Bella started sitting on her own clutch of eggs. Overnight, Earl was a bachelor. With no girlfriend to occupy his time, he has taken to following us at a distance as we work in the yard. Many times a day I’ll discover him behind me, hearing his hisss-chortle before I see him.

“Howdy Earl!” I’ll reply. He’ll watch me with his head cocked, his Elvis Mohawk popping up and down. The other day, he came beside me while I was weeding. “You know, Earl,” I said, “You’ve been hard on the plants. Could you please watch where you step with those big feet?”

Big feet, wicked claws.

He eyed me quizzically, then bent his head and began snapping off the fiddle heads on a nearby fern, his eye on me the whole time. To be sure I got his point, he turned his back to me and let go with a projectile blast of poop. If you are not familiar with ducks, you would not know that ducks have elevated bowel noise to a new level. You can hear them poop from clear across the yard. It’s like that sound that little kids make when they want to sound particularly offensive, with their tongues out and their lips flapping.

“Thank you for that, Earl,” I said as he continued to eat off the heads of my fern.

There are some animals that just make you laugh. Earl is one of those. He is both majestic and goofy at the same time. Like if you combined the Pope and the Three Stooges. In these days of political unrest and too-regular world catastrophes of one sort or another, I would wish everyone an Earl for their yard. We all could use a good laugh or two.

So I send this little note off into the universe with a big thank you to a very big duck who manages to keep a smile on my face. May you all be graced with exactly the “Earl” you need.

Years ago, when I was reading about the meditation technique of Centering Prayer, Abbott Thomas Keating wrote that the great contemplatives either meditated or spent a great deal of time in nature. I never forgot that: That I could exchange hours on a meditation bench for hours in deep nature and somehow achieve similar benefits.

I’ve shifted over to a Buddhist meditation called Vipassana now and I especially love the writings of Tibetan Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, famous for his practice of walking meditation. I do a bumbling version of that when I move very purposefully through my back yard, quieting my mind so that I can focus on the tiny perfections of nature.

Hahn says that there is perfection in each moment, but we must be quiet enough inside to recognize it. Each day, I realize more deeply than the day before how addicted most of us are to moving very fast, racing into the future with no appreciation for the present…

It seems to me that I’ve been cursed with a mind that is more chaotic than most, and I’ve spent considerable time trying to learn how to settle its galloping, rampaging gait. The work is slow and often tedious, and I tend to feel that I’m not getting anywhere, but the wonders of Creation in my yard beckon me outside each day to see them and to touch them.

Yes, I sit for an hour each morning on a meditation pillow, but it is my back yard, my Creation Guru, if you will, that teaches me best about the brilliance and beauty of what is true in the here and now.

Yesterday, Nature brought me an unexpected breakthrough that has made all this meditative focus worth every frustrating—often boring—moment.

In a surprising and unexpected bout of sunlight and relative warmth in the mid-afternoon, I ran outside so that I could take some time to be “slow.” I’m sure you can appreciate the dichotomy there.

Of course, I dashed up to the bee yard, where my three surviving hives have been poking their noses out on warmer afternoons to take a potty run (bees won’t defecate in the hive unless they are very, very sick), or fly over and feed at the large pile of honeycomb I’ve set out for them.

The moment I got within hearing distance of the hives, my heart started to sing in gratitude along with the gentle, reviving sound of their hum. Bee sounds settle my mind and—from what I’ve read—have a deeply soothing, restorative effect on the human nervous system.

I pulled over a plastic chair, wiped away a puddle of last night’s rain, and sat down so my nose was level with the honey pile, about a foot away.

Before my grateful eyes, the bees floated and sang and worked. The rest of then world fell away as I slowed and deepened my breathing. So close to them, my eyes let me trick myself into believing I was one with them.

The sent of honey and beeswax filled the afternoon air, and a chill sun shone through the bees translucent, amber bellies.

In one gentle moment that flowed effortlessly into the next present moment, this is what I saw: A hungry bee pushed her head deep into a honey-filled hexagon, balancing herself on one rear leg. As she propped herself there, I saw her slim abdomen begin to expand like a tiny water balloon as she siphoned the honey through her straw-like tongue.

She spent long, endless seconds drinking up the sweetness. When she finished, she took time cleaning off her sticky antennae with her front legs, then stroked the honey off her body and flew off past my face.

At a broken piece of pollen-filled comb, I watched a trio of bees work together to pull away chunks of beeswax so they could get to the fermented pollen or “bee bread” above them. I had always wondered if bees gathered old pollen from the combs.

Pollen is baby food for the bees, and there is very little flower pollen about this early in the year. By attending to the moment and taking my time about it, I’d gotten my answer: This is where the bees were filling their pollen baskets!

I watched as the bees gathered the pollen just as they would on a flower, pulling it toward them with their front legs, scraping it from their heads and antennae, and pushing it to their pollen baskets to carry home.

So bold! But harmless.

On the side of my log hive where the honeycomb platters rested, I watched a large, colorful jumping spider roam tentatively across the wood. I recognized her from last autumn, where I had seen her scurry into a crack beneath the hive, carrying a dead bee.

Her colors were distinctive. I remembered that orange and white arrangement of dots on her back, and her lovely cobalt blue fangs. A bee drew near her and she moved slowly forward, testing the waters, so to speak. The bee saw her ran toward her, and Miss Spider backpedaled quickly and raised up on her hind legs, waving her arms in front of her. “Stop! Wait!” she hollered in spider-ese.

The bee heard and hurried away. Seeing that encounter, I learned that this spider was only strong enough to take the weak and sick bees. I allowed myself a moment of wonder at the incredible community of creatures that make up a healthy hive. It is not just the bees themselves, but hundreds of other creatures, from yeasts to springtails to spiders that benefit—and benefit from—the bee colony.

Last summer, I had watched while tiny native bees no bigger than a mid-sized ant built nests in the pin-sized worm holes dotting the entire log. Two mason bees had found some worm holes large enough for their nests, and worked alongside the tiny native bees making their own mud-packed nests.

My natural restlessness caused me to start shifting around in my chair, but I slowed my breathing again and told myself, “Sit still. There is time for this.”

The little ootheca (“ooh-ah-thee-ka).

Curious bees came to rest on my hands and eyeglass rims. When I cocked my eyebrow to see one, my eyes caught a glimpse of a brownish bump on the log face I had never noticed before. Looking more closely, I was suddenly excited to see that the bump was actually an ootheca—the hard egg sac of a praying mantis!

I had been thrilled to discover a mantis policing our yard last summer, the first I’d ever found in any yard I’d ever owned. For an insect, they have a surprisingly majestic presence. And its not just their size. Apparently, a mantis had decided our yard was regal enough a palace to bear her young! I’ve read that mantids are especially susceptible to yard poisons and if you want to attract them, go organic. It worked!

I caught sight of movement a bit lower on the log face and in a small crack in the wood, a pillbug had made a bed. She was pulling all of her many legs into the dark split in the wood, trying to be inconspicuous. Her tiny feet were dotted with bright white socks. I never realizedpillbugs have socks.

It was when I finally stood up, slowly straightening my creaky knees, that it happened.

My eyes fell upon a crack in the stone ledge beneath my feet where a small bittercress was piercing the gray gravel in a brilliant blast of spring green. All of a sudden, I cracked, too. I cracked wide open and tumbled into a hidden landscape where for one precious instant, everything around me was blazing green and shimmering. My heart seemed to split apart trying to gather it all in, and I gasped to myself, “Everything, everything is so…vast.”

Then it was gone as quickly as it had come. My heart smoothed itself, like a bee pushing pollen into her basket. The green toned itself down a notch. But my pulse was charging. I had gone somewhere else.

No, not elsewhere. Deeper. I had gone deeper. Like the bittercress in the stone wall, I had cracked something. Or my ego had cracked. Something stone-hard in me had buckled for an instant and a blazing new vision had poured into the split seam of my Self.

Bittercress–often the first plant in yard to return in spring. VERY healthy to eat!

I stood gathering my breath, watching my feet where they stood in stunted winter grass, wondering if such a moment would ever happen again. And then not caring whether it did or not, because it had happened once and the trace of its wonder remained.

I wondered if that is how the rest of manifest Creation—the animals and plants and stones and all of it—see this world every day: Ablaze.

Walking slowly back to the house in a holy silence, the words of that most beloved poet-Buddhist Leonard Cohen followed me: “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in…”